


Hysteria

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Has Panic Attacks, Cigarettes, Dean Smokes, Fallen Angel Castiel, Fluff, Human Castiel, M/M, POV Castiel, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is drowning in pain, silence, and Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hysteria

**Author's Note:**

> so i found this fic in the bottom of rough draft writer's block hell and it's honestly at least a year old by now but fucket amirite? it'll be cute i promise!
> 
> technical notes: since this is a copypasted fic i've been having trouble with the formatting (namely the lack of paragraph spacing), so please please forgive me while i do my best to fix it ugh :( i'm going through each line to readjust in html so stay tuned and sorry if i miss anything!

 

-

 

One of the first human sensations Castiel feels is pain. Apparently, it comes in diverse forms and frequencies. Sometimes it is skin tearing from skin, blood rising to the surface of abused flesh, bone crumbling into pieces… and sometimes it's frozen air greedily drawing heat from naked skin, acid creating a self-destructive storm inside an empty stomach, and one of the most confusing forms of distress Cas has ever encountered - a name, loaded with memories, taking the shape of an anthropomorphic monster, relentlessly tearing Castiel apart from deep inside his chest cavity without ever spilling a drop of blood.  
  
Dean.

  
  
\---

  
  
He feels burning pain, pain that funnels all awareness down into white noise and black vision and the one word searing out the walls of his throat

  
                          (deandeandeandeandeandean)

  
and he's losing his grip on existence and his ears are ringing from all the blood spilling out of him and there's holes in his chest where they shouldn't be and he's falling asleep.

  
  
\---

  
  
  
He hears a familiar voice (no, it couldn't be) and then there is pain again and his lungs mutiny and his heart gives up and the soul called Castiel becomes stardust.

  
With his last thought, he wonders where he'll go.

 

  
\---

  
  
  
Even in death, Cas is homeless.

 

  
\---

 

  
  
At first Castiel doesn't want to open his eyes to see where he will be pacing for the rest of infinity. He can hear that same disembodied voice from before on Earth saying his name (minus God), and he really wishes it would just shut up because if this is the voice that will be haunting him for all eternity, then Castiel is surely residing in Hell.

  
Then the voice generates a limb two limbs and is groping over Castiel the flesh-and-bone shell Castiel still is wrapped in that was, long ago, a ghost called Jimmy Novak, and the limbs are desperate and he wants them to stop and so Castiel takes a breath and he's opening his eyes to push away the limbs (they're hands) and the first thing he sees is a face, sharp and unfamiliar and veiling the presence or absence of a soul. Castiel sees a human face.

  
He sees a jaw and he sees lips and he sees freckles and stubble and eyes (ivory, not onyx, and pupils the color of grass during springtime) and he can't see human souls without his Grace but he knows that this is Dean because the face is screaming his name (minus God, always and again) and only Dean can rename him in that way (he doesn’t even know) and the black hole that had become Castiel's Cas's existence seals itself up and blooms into reality again and the first thing that exists in Cas's mind is Dean his face his voice his hands (Dean's hands deanshands oh no please) that are grasping at Cas's leg and arm and face and Dean's scent and Dean's touch and

  
                deandeandean.

  
  
Distantly, as Cas stays frozen and drinks in the face that belongs to Dean Samuel Winchester (this is his breath and his water and his blood now), he wonders vaguely how he managed to get into Heaven if the Gates are closed.

 

  
  
\------

 

  
  
Sam doesn't ask why Dean needs to take the backseat when they finally bring Cas home and Dean is grateful for that. It's harder to speak than usual, which for Dean "no-click-flick-moments" Winchester is a big deal.

  
He stays nearly paralyzed the whole ride with his arms around Cas and his eyes locked on Cas's chest counting Mississippi's between each expansion and contraction, and Cas doesn't mind because he's busy imprinting a map of Dean's face inside his eyelids so that even when he lets them fall, he can still see Dean's smile.

  
He falls asleep between the soft dimples and corners of Dean’s mouth and the envisage of what they might taste feel hurt like, and it’s peaceful for the first time since he can remember.

  
  
\---

 

  
Being human for the first time isn't something that graciously allows you to step in toe-first - it hits you like a wave that fills your lungs and eyes and ears and nose with the ocean all at once, and as soon as you swallow it your next breath fills you up with more.

  
No wonder babies cry so much, Castiel muses. They're drowning in existence.

  
Speaking of drowning. Cas coughs up an unexpected mouthful of soapy water and backs out of the shower spray. Even breathing is a dangerous adventure since he fell. He opens his eyes, face-to-face with the blue tiles surrounding him. It feels strange standing in a controlled rainstorm, controlling it with dials and buttons, like what being God would feel like on the most mundane level.

Cas forgets where he is momentarily, lost in the pitter-patter of water on his back and the overwhelming quiet of solitude. He can't breathe.

  
  
…home.

  
Castiel is home.

  
He shuts his eyes again and leans against one of the cold partitions. For once the hysteria of sensory overload dwindles down to a slight nausea and Cas's mind-ocean is a gently ebbing tide.

  
At least for a moment.

  
"Cas! You alright in there, man?” Dean's voice echoes through the wall accompanied by a few light punches at the door. Cas startles, hitting his head on the stability bar, and with a groan replies, "Yes, Dean. I'm coming out."

  
It's the last thing Cas wants to do right now (well not the last), but he grabs hold of the slippery metal bar above his head and pulls himself up from the ceramic floor where he had been crouching. Wiping the residual water from his eyelashes, he inhales shakily and adjusts the dial on the shower wall until the torrent trickles down to a few teardrops falling off the metal nozzle, then steps gingerly out of the tub onto the downy white bathmat on the other side.

  
The resounding silence is - oxymoronically - deafening.

  
And then Dean says Cas's name from the other side of the too-thick door and Cas can breathe just fine again.

 

  
\---

  
  
  
"Cassandra!" Dean has that voice he sometimes uses when first entering a hunt, the one where he keeps it pointedly unruffled but it makes Cas uncomfortable because just under Dean's tongue Cas could always see the sparks of terror flickering out of his essence under the glass words. Cas understood that it would have upset Dean to have this (as well as any other betrayals his soullight gave away) pointed out, so Cas did his best to forget (it was so hard, forgive me) and instead learn the galaxy that was Dean Winchester as a blind man would, through the tasteless jokes he told and the clinquant laugh that became scarcer every day Dean breathed. Of all that is Holy, Cas misses that laugh.

  
Suddenly, something hurts again inside his stomach - it's almost the same bite as hunger, but Cas does not want food. This is almost worse. Like a black hole spawned from within his organs and is inhaling the breath from Cas's lungs, and the blood from his veins. Cas feels utterly empty and there’s no sustenance that can relieve someone of true nothingness.

  
He can't breathe and the blood is leaving his head in a rush that drowns out all sound and his vision is turning to static and Cas doesn't know how to move his feet so he crouches down and he searches for the scars on his chest that he can no longer trace and he remembers a man from the homeless shelter and what he told Cas to do the last time he couldn't breathe like this.

  
The man said to focus. He said to delve through your brain and sink your nails into something that you love and think of that and only that and so Cas dives in and he searches for his focus. He called it… a panic attack, Cas remembers. The man said that he felt this way too sometimes, so Cas decides that if other humans can fight this attack, so can he. He’s fought harder wars than this invisible one.

  
He closes his eyes and kneels on the small bath mat, water droplets racing each other off his skin, and tries to remember the precise color of Dean's soul.

  
He can't.

 

  
  
\---

 

  
  
"Yo, Cas, you don't answer, I'm comin' in!" Dean's voice is behind panes of glass and on the other side of a dream that Cas is not part of, so he disregards it. He doesn't hear the door being forced open and he doesn't register Dean's frantic "Cas!" and so it comes as a violent shock when Dean grips at Cas's shoulders and brings one hand up to cup his face, still saying his name like a hymn and a plea and an apology all at once.

  
This is real, and when Cas looks up and finds himself nose-to-nose with a forest of green and a constellation of freckles, it stops mattering that it's all Cas can see because it's more than enough, and if his last breath is used up getting Dean to laugh again then so be it because this is real and it's palpable and it's enough to fill the emptiness inside Cas's ribcage and overflow onto the hands still grasping him and holding him to Earth.

  
Here, Cas finds his grounding in the forests and constellations and stardust that is Dean.

  
deandeandean.

  
"Cas. Cas... Cas!"

  
  
\---

  
  
  
It's a little embarrassing when Cas realizes the position he's put himself and Dean in - both men are crouching on a wet tile floor in some sort of desperate embrace, Cas naked and dripping wet hyperventilating against Dean who is fully clothed but damp from where Cas dove fell into him. Dean's whispering a mantra into Cas's right ear, a sedative of "Hey, hey, shh it's okay, Cas it's okay, I'm here I got ya," and Cas is torn between reigning his breaths into a regulated patina and letting himself draw in greedily hard breaths as if he were trying to swallow Dean's scent and carry it with him forever (if only that were possible). Cas is sure that when Dean lets go, he'll crash and crumble like an avalanche and Dean should not have to be around to see that. He's still waging a war between his mind and his muscles when Dean brings it to a resolution by pushing Cas by his shoulders until he is (terribly, agonizingly) an arm's length away and Cas has galaxies in his head and every star is something he wants to communicate to Dean but he knows he can't and so he forces out his grounding word - "Dean."

  
Dean's calloused thumbs (he'd know them from a thousand others) are stroking Cas's shoulders and his fingers are splayed over what would have been the joint of his wings meeting his shoulder blades and the newly vacant space would be terrifying if it had been anyone else reminding Cas of his Fall but it's Dean and Dean's hands and they are filling the space left by Cas's wings and he thinks, distantly, that he would like to be reminded of his humanity always if it dictates that Dean touch him to do it but he understands he can't tell him that and so he doesn't tell him anything but hopes that his eyes can explain his need for him.

  
"Cas, dammit, don't scare me like that!" Dean says in a gravely voice that falls into a rattled groan at the end. He locks his palms into Cas's bent elbows and hauls him up to a standing position, and it is only then that Dean remembers Cas's nakedness and his face becomes flushed with blood as he swivels around to grab a nearby towel and thrust it in Cas's general direction.

  
"Um, get dressed and.. uh, just. Just don't fucking do that again," Cas tries to explain to the back of Dean's head that he does not yet know how to prevent these internal hurricanes but Dean beats him to it, saying, "Look I know it's a shitty thing to go through, 'cause let me tell you I've had 'em myself, but if you feel like that again, tell me? Just- I don't know, Come get me… and. And we'll figure this out." And with that Dean strides out of the bathroom and shuts the door without a sound.

  
It’s always too quiet these days.

 

\---

 

  
  
Cas stares at his hands alone in the middle of the bathroom and tries to absorb the phantom touches of Dean pressed up against him and his hands fisting into Dean's plaid shirt. Cas can still catch traces of the faint scent of gun oil, heavy-duty detergent, cigarettes and beer that he has come to recognize as distinctly Dean and no one else. He knows it's pointless to try to pause and rewind time (he's not God) but somehow he just can't seem to make himself move. It takes another solid 3 and a half minutes before Cas finally jerks his body into motion and dresses himself with the clothes left by Dean on the sink. They are clean, something that Cas has learned not to take for granted since being stranded without his Grace, and soft under his hands. Jimmy's clothes were functional, professional - these were what might be considered tasteless in the eyes of some, but Cas decides that he loves these clothes. Changing clothing is satisfying in a way Cas had never thought he'd enjoy - stripping your guise so that you can appear to others however you want to project yourself.

  
It feels safe.

 

  
\---

 

  
"Dean's out front," Sam says, mouth full of lettuce, as Cas enters the gargantuan library inside the bunker.

  
"Thank you, Sam," Cas's mouth almost independently turns upward at the corners, exposing his teeth in a buoyant grin. It's uplifting in itself, a reminder from the body to the mind that all is well and it's acceptable to express contentment. Cas notices that this smiling business has been going on almost non-stop since the ride back to the bunker within Dean's anchoring grasp. It is not unpleasant in the least, except now his jaw is starting to protest. It doesn't hamper Cas, though, in the slightest. He ducks his head and smiles again just to himself as he passes by Sam, who is eating salad with one hand and flipping purposefully through a stack of books with the other. Briefly, Cas wants to press a reassuring hand to Sam's furrowed brow or make some other contact that would possibly transfer some of his newly-found tranquility to the other man, but Cas understands that it would be an awkward move - Sam is iffy about anyone touching him aside from Dean. Besides, under the surface of Sam's studiousness is a calmer undertone. The walls of the bunker are considerably sturdier and more spacious than the cramped and filthy motel rooms Cas knows the two brothers were accustomed to. He rests his hand on the latch leading out onto the front steps, and squeezes it once in thanks before he steps out into the darkened terrace.

 

  
\---

 

  
  
Dean's sitting with his back facing Cas on the second step down, smoking a cigarette and staring off into the trees ahead of them.

  
"Hello, Dean," Cas offers as an alert to his presence. Dean, however, simply raises his hand in a beckoning gesture and leans his head back to meet Cas's eyes upside down. It's one of those things that gives Cas the sensation of being shot with adrenaline… not a painful feeling but still unsettling, especially in the lowest part of his stomach region. It's Dean’s face, among many other small human details, that Cas craves more than anything. It's like putting a puzzle together, piece by piece, that makes the picture in its whole so much more profoundly beautiful. Cas is nowhere near comprehending Dean as a human rather than a soul, but he doesn't mind.

Whatever Dean gives him he will take.  
  
Cas seats himself on the stair Dean is occupying and breathes in the warmth that emanates from him. It's too close for what Dean would call "personal" space, but Dean's not complaining (only ever did once) so Cas pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over his fingers and lets the quiet wash over the both of them.

  
it's not so crushing this time.

  
  
\---

  
  
  
“So, uh… you okay?" Dean queries after a few dozen breaths in silence, pivoting so that he's leaning on one knee to level Cas with a genuinely concerned look and an awkward throat-clear.

  
"Yes." There is no hesitation in Cas's voice. "I'm with you, of course I am alright."

  
Dean gets flush across his cheeks again. ”Look, about what happened in there…" He flicks the collected ash off the end of his cigarette and studies the burning tip before crushing it out with the heel of his boot. "It's okay. I mean, it feels like the shitstorm of all shitstorms when you're in the middle of it but you gotta know there's no hellfire coming at you. It's all in your head, yeah?" Cas nods and smiles again, gently.

  
"I know, Dean. Thank you for your concern. I'm sorry I got you wet." Dean smirks at that, and Cas can't help but feel proud.

  
"You scared the shit outta me, you know, I thought some spirit snatched you through the drain or something." Dean clears his throat again and turns back to the trees, and Cas doesn't know how to atone for causing Dean to worry so he places a hand on Dean's shoulder, sealing it over the brand he placed there years ago when he first heard of the Righteous Man. Somehow, after all this time, that label doesn't have as resounding of an effect as the name Cas knows him by now.

  
Dean nods thoughtfully as if nothing more needs to be said and coaxes another cigarette out of the packet in his hands, placing it in his mouth in a delicate hold between his chapped lips. Cas watches, rapt, as he snaps a spark to life from the small lighter cupped in his hands and holds it up to the cigarette. Dean's face is illuminated momentarily, then is swallowed by shadows a second later.

  
"You want one?" Dean speaks from the corner of his mouth and glances briefly at Cas. It takes him a moment to realize he had been staring, and when he does it's a taxing effort to force his eyes down to the small box Dean is waggling at him.

  
Not that this is anything new to Cas… staring at Dean, that is. Being stuck to Dean's face was like stepping into quicksand. He’s learned to live wrapped up in it, below the stars and forests. He cocks his head quizzically at the packet in Dean's hands and narrows his eyes. Somehow, he notices, even everyday objects are framed beautifully within Dean's sturdy hands.

  
"Helps me calm down, but it's a motherfucker on the lungs." Dean continues, rolling his eyes slef-depricatingly. “Don’t tell Sam, dude’d kill me helluva lot faster than these ever could if he knew I started again.”

  
Cas knew that cigarettes were unhealthy, but so were hamburgers and sometimes it was worth it just to experience something you enjoyed. It felt more like life, like you were real inside of it.

  
"Yes, I would like to try that," he finally states, his voice filtering through as casual and blunt despite his heart seemly pumping all the blood in his body into his esophagus. This was another strange sensation. So many things that Cas had experienced out of the blue like that were similar - they had no physical implications but affected the mind into believing that the impossible was happening. Such as: your heart had been torn from its cavity, that your blood had turned to ice, that butterflies had taken refuge in your ribcage.

  
Cas found it even more strange that all these feelings occurred frequently, if not exclusively, when Dean was near.

  
"Cas, buddy, you with me?" his own sharp intake of breath brakes Cas from his narrative, and he flicks his ice blue eyes back upwards to Dean's emerald ones.

  
"Yes, Dean, I have not left this position," Cas remarks. Humans always ask the most bizarre things.

  
Dean throws his head back and laughs (another bizarre quality of humans. What was so funny about stating the obvious?) which Cas is elated over regardless until Dean starts choking as the smoke he had trapped in his lungs climbs out of his throat and into the air above them. He dips his head between his legs and grips Cas's thigh with one hand to steady himself as he continues to gasp for air.

  
"Dean!" Cas places his hand on Dean's chest, more out of instinct than anything else. He knew perfectly well he no longer possessed the capability to heal without his Grace, but sometimes the body forgets.

  
"It's okay, Florence,” Dean manages in a strained craok. “That's supposed to happen." He clears his throat twice more then settles his breathing back to normal, patting Cas's leg once before he leans back on the metal stairs with his elbows on the step behind him, still holding the lit cigarette. His voice is grainy and strained but he's smiling so Cas relaxes, but makes no attempt to remove his hand from where it is splayed out over Dean's left coat pocket. Dean doesn't either.

  
"Are you certain?" Cas leans forward and furrows his brow at the rate Dean's pulse is beating - wildly elevated, but regular.

  
"Yeah, I'm not dying or anything. You're just not supposed to swallow it," Dean grins even wider, flashing his teeth. The corners of his eyes crease up, a good sign that it's a genuine smile and not just for show.

  
"Okay," Cas intones, and draws back his hand. It brushes against Dean's denim-wrapped thigh, briefly, and even though Dean’s pulse is still racing and he tenses and draws in a tight breath he doesn’t stop him, so Cas lets his fingers float to the outer curve of Dean's leg, criss-crossed with Dean's hand on his, and leaves them there.

  
"So, you still wanna ruin your lungs?" Dean inquires, that smile still lighting his face even as he brings the cigarette back to his mouth and and inhales.

  
"It is something that you do, so yes," Cas says thoughtfully.

  
"Okay then," Dean replied, his voice shot to almost a rumble from imprisoning the lungful of smoke. "Although I shouldn't be enabling you. The habit's a bitch to break." He flips open the packet and shakes out a cigarette anyway, which Cas takes gingerly with two fingers. It feels flimsy, like nothing Cas would want to ignite near his mouth had he not seen Dean do the same so many times.

  
"So," Dean continues in the midst of an exhale that swirls up a fog of the dust-scented smoke. "What you gotta do is put this filtered end in your mouth, flick the lighter, and suck." Dean brings his own cigarette to his lips a a demonstration.

  
"How is that not dangerous?" Cas asks as he inspects the small paper tube in his palm.

  
"I dunno, man, go ask the special snowflake who invented the damn thing." Dean retorts.

  
"I do not know who that person is, or where they are residing." Cas points out.

  
Dean shuts his eyes, grinning amiably. "Cas," he says, eyes still closed but raising his eyebrows, "You gotta stop taking things so literally." Dean keeps smiling and it's the most comforting thing Cas has ever seen.

  
"How should i take them, Dean?" Cas replies as he holds his cigarette with his thumb and forefinger and squints through the filter. Dean simply shrugs, and stamps out the remaining stub of his cigarette.

  
"Just, like, laugh or something, ya know?" Dean leans back and hands Cas the green plastic lighter (translucent and vibrant - the same as Dean's eyes). It's warm from his hand, and Cas grips it in his palm as if he were trying to absorb (Dean) the heat into his skin.

  
"One of these days I'll get you to laugh," Dean continues as Cas places the colored end of his cigarette in his mouth. "I ain't never heard a single chuckle out of you and it's a damn shame if you ask me." Ironic, Cas thinks to himself.

  
"Why is it shameful?" Cas mumbles through the filter. Dean doesn't answer, just drops his head backwards into the trees surrounding the bunker and sighs. Cas diverts his attention back to the lighter clutched in his fist and taps on the side button experimentally. Nothing happens.

  
He hears a shift of fabric and then Dean is turned towards him on the steps, watching him (studying him?) with a half-smirk still twitching at one corner of his mouth.

  
"Need help?"

  
"Yes, that would be beneficial," Cas mutters, still gripping the cigarette between his lips. He narrows his eyes at the contraption and after a pause hands it back to Dean.

  
"Alright. C'mere, Cassanova." Dean beckons, leaning forward and bringing his left hand just under (so close to touching, so far from what he wants) Cas's chin. Obediently, Cas leans into Dean's palm and places his second and third finger on either side of the cylinder in his mouth the way he remembers from watching Dean. He dips his face downward a notch and goes slightly cross-eyed looking at Dean's wrist under his jaw. It's then that Cas experiences yet another strange and inexplicable sensation as his heart jumps out of rythm for a count, then clenches painfully when Dean takes his hand away from where his fingers had just barely brushed the stubble on Cas's jaw.

  
"Kay? Remember to suck," Dean is dizzyingly close and as he says this his breath ghosts over Cas's hand gripping the cigarette.

  
Cas nods and Dean cups his left hand around Cas's cigarette (how can hands be so kissable?). He flicks the lighter twice before he flares up a small flame, but once it's blazed to life it stays there - a tiny ghost hovering over the plastic. It's beautiful, Cas realizes, and soft-looking; the base of the fire is a deep purplish blue and the white-orange tip dances in the breeze. Cas would be tempted to touch it (and the ring on Dean's finger) if he didn't know better.

  
"Gotta warn ya, though, you're gonna feel like fuckin' death on a dirtbike when you breathe in," Dean murmurs, chuckling to himself. "It's a helluva a kick."

  
This is another thing about humans, Cas notices. Always doing things to harm themselves for pleasure. But he trusts Dean, and so he does as he says and draws air into his lungs through the smoldering tube.

  
Dean was right, it is indeed a 'hell of a kick'.

  
"Wha-" Cas starts, but the smoke in his lungs both tickles and burns at the same time (if that's even possible) up his throat and he's caught up in a fit of deep, resonant coughing.

  
The next thing he knows, Cas is the one with his head between his legs and one hand holding the cigarette away from his body while the other is clutching Dean's, sandwiched between his knee and his heaving chest.

  
Hey, hey, easy," Dean's voice is soft, and Cas wishes he could stop hacking long enough to hear it clearly but he can't so he keeps coughing until he's able to breathe without getting choked up. The whole time Dean's right hand is making circles on Cas's back, whacking him gently while the other is curling around both of Cas's hands where he still has it still clamped tight to his torso. Eventually, Cas is able to swallow and inhale without his throat itching and he breathes, and then in the same breath he inexplicably giggles (Cas has never once giggled). After that he realizes he can't stop and so he just keeps snickering at his shoes like they're the most amusing thing on Earth but they aren't and he can't for the life of him figure out what is so entertaining and Dean is probably far beyond perplexed at Cas's sudden delirium but when he manages to settle himself and look up at Dean, his face is bemused and so Cas matches his expression, releasing Dean's hand from his tight clutch and shrugging his shoulders in apology. Dean rolls his eyes and chuckles to himself.

  
"You look like you won the fucking lottery, dude."

  
Cas shrugs again. "I'm just happy to be with you."

  
Dean's face sobers, and he drags a hand across his mouth as he nods carefully. His palm sounds like sandpaper against his stubble and Cas interlaces his fingers so he doesn't reach up and graze them across Dean's jaw.

  
  
\---

 

  
After several more inhales resulting in fits of coughing, Cas finds his rhythm in the drags he takes off of the cigarette and decides that while dreadful on the inhale, the exhale provides a pacifying relief and after a few hits Cas's hands begin to tingle and his heart slows down several beats - it's soothing in a way that it shouldn't logically be. Cas decides he's in love with the way his mouth tastes like what Dean smells like, and savors it as the two men sit in a comfortable silence. Dean is still gazing up into the sky, and Cas wonders if, had the miracle of his coming back to life not occurred that morning, Dean would have been looking up at Cas's heavenly form and not recognizing that up in the expanse of endless black and galaxies, Castiel would be screaming his name in the form of a dying star and shedding fire instead of tears.

  
It's going to happen one day, he tells himself.

  
Abruptly, Cas's heart seizes up again and it feels like he's back at April's apartment and she's slicing holes into his chest, and all that his mind knows is Dean Dean Dean and it's hysteria and the tide is coming in and he's drowning and there's not air enough to fill his lungs and he hears the same familiar voice shouting his name from under the water but this time, Cas latches onto the distant sound and lets it anchor him and pull him to the surface where Dean

  
          (deandeandean)

  
is covering him like a second skin and speaking a lullaby of Cas's name and "Hey, hey, it's okay, hey," and when Cas focuses on the words and the mouth they are rolling from the storm is gone and all that Cas knows is that his lips have covered Dean's like he's trying to breathe in Dean's words instead of air, and he's clutching Dean's hands in both of his own and Dean is going lax under his grip, limp as death, and then suddenly he’s pushing Cas into the siderail and the stairs and kissing Cas so hard he tastes blood mixed with the smoke (it’s the same smoke but it’s different it’s Dean deandeandean, this is what he tastes feels hurts like), and it feels like hysteria too but this time it's a complete polar opposite rush. It's filling instead of emptying and it's air instead of suffocation and it's an explosion instead of an implosion. It's a flood of everything that means life for Cas instead of an overwhelming nothing; and instead of wanting it to end, Cas is fisting his hands in Dean's jacket and in his hair for as much as he can take, and Dean is giving it to him like he's a mirror of Cas's emotions and a wave hitting its twin, crashing into oblivion. He's shaking (or maybe that's Cas) and he's not letting any space get between them as he licks his way into Cas's mouth and Cas groans like he's starving for this (he is). They don't break contact, but instead find more places to establish it - Dean's hands on Cas's hips, Cas's hands on either side of Dean's face, never stopping to let the rest of the world affect them.

Cas is in love with the taste of cigarettes and beer and something that can now and forever only belong to Dean and he's in love (always had been) with the forests of green and the constellations of freckles and every single atom that had arranged into this hunter Righteous Man Dean and he's in fucking love with Dean's soul that he can no longer even see but it doesn’t matter because there, on the steps in front of the bunker, Dean becomes Cas's home.


End file.
